Family stories and research stories that tell the tale of my personal research. If you have a similar family line or want to know more. Please contact me!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The Dollar-Tucker Branch

William Henry Dollar and Jennie Sparks had 9 children, 8 of
whom lived to adulthood. They had five
sons and 3 daughters. The oldest
daughter, Mary Jane Dollar was born 14 Feb 1845 in Ashe Co., NC and she died 20
Jul 1876 in Ashe Co., NC a few months after the birth of her youngest son. Mary Jane married Moses Tucker on 17 Nov
1869. Within a year, their first son,
Worth, was born and then Loretta, Florence and Lillard Tucker soon
followed. The youngest Dillard was born
on 6 Mar 1876 and he died three weeks later on 28 Mar 1876. After the birth of her youngest child, Mary
Jane was in poor health after the birth and death of her youngest child. Mary Jane’s sister, Emeline, came to live
with them and help take care of the children while she was sick. As my great grandmother told the story, Mary
Jane died and they buried her and he then married Emeline on the way home,
because it wasn’t proper to have an unmarried woman in the house. It is obvious that this story was wrong,
because Moses Tucker married Emeline on 26 Oct 1876 several months after Mary
Jane’s death. However, I imagine that it
was a story told my great grandmother’s grandfather who raised her. I’m not sure that Monroe Dollar was happy
that his younger sister married her sister’s widower so quickly after he sister’s
death. There were four small children
that needed to be taken care of and I’m sure Moses had to spend most of his
time working to support his family.

Mary Jane Dollar

Emeline Dollar

Moses Tucker

Emeline Dollar was only a year younger than her sister and
30 years old when she married Moses Tucker.
They started having children very quickly and by the time of November
1890, she had had six more children. A
few years later, Moses Tucker and Emeline met Mormon missionaries and were
converted and soon left for Utah. I
believe that they left sometime around 1892.
That must have been quite a trek from North Carolina to Utah in the
early 1890’s. I have to wonder if trains
were available or if they traveled by wagon.
The trip was probably completed on both modes of transportation. Moses and Emeline settled in Cleveland, Emery
Co., UT. Emeline’s mother died in 1893
and soon after her father traveled out from North Carolina to join them in
Utah. I’m told that he, too, converted
to Mormonism before he died on 31 August, 1895.

Moses Tucker didn’t live to be all that old of a man – I’m
told that he died as the result of a horse who ran over him on 16 December
1905. By the time that he died, all of
his oldest children were married with families of their own. Only the youngest four were unmarried. Emeline was in Emery Co., UT in 1920 and Salt
Lake City, UT in 1930. By the time of
her death in 1938, she was living in Marley, Lincoln Co., ID. I assume that she must have moved in with her
children and was probably living with her oldest daughter, Ida, when she
died. Emeline lived to be the longest
lived of her siblings at 92 years of age.
(Her brother James Madison Dollar lived to be 83 years old.) With exception of James Madison Dollar and
John Wesley Dollar - she had no living siblings after 1908.

It is interesting to me to note that my great grandmother
came out west in 1910 and lived many miles away from her aunt without knowing
her location. I’m sure that their
conversion and trek out west was fraught with many hardships. It is never easy to start a new life in a new
place….nor is it easy to be considered outsiders in a place that you might
consider home. I suspect that is the
reason why many of those who converted to Mormonism moved to Utah and Idaho –
there were a lot of converts who had also made the move. I understand that a few of the Tucker
children went back to Ashe Co., NC to visit family and their ancestral
home. I have to say that a large chunk
of the descendants of William Henry Dollar and Jane Sparks are descendants of
Moses Tucker through his marriages to the two Dollar sisters.

Descendants of Moses Tucker

Generation No. 1

1. MOSES2
TUCKER
(BENJAMIN1)
was born 14 Feb 1847 in Yadkin Co., NC, and died 16 Dec 1905 in Cleveland,
Emery Co., UT. He married (1) MARY
JANE DOLLAR
17 Nov 1869 in Ashe Co., NC, daughter of WILLIAM
DOLLAR and JANE SPARKS. She was born 14 Feb 1845 in Ashe Co., NC, and
died 20 Jul 1876 in Ashe Co., NC. He
married (2) EMELINE DOLLAR
26 Oct 1876 in Ashe Co., NC, daughter of WILLIAM
DOLLAR and JANE SPARKS. She was born Mar 1846 in North Fork, Ashe
Co., NC, and died 15 Jun 1938 in Marley, Lincoln Co., ID.